Brussels and Bruges, Belgium

Sorry! I know I left off on the way to Brussels. I didn’t forget about it! So we took a Thalys train from Paris to Brussels and got in a little after eleven. Steve had three Belgium friends who had spent the fall semester at U of IL and they all picked us up from the train station. One of them actually lived in the city of Brussels, the other two a little bit outside, so we dropped our stuff off at Boris’ house and were driven into the city. We started out with a night tour of Brussels. It is an absolutely gorgeous city. The main cathedral in the city center, St. Michaels’ looks remarkably like Notre Dame… especially when you’re coming directly from Paris! We also saw the city square, the Grand Place which was absolutely gorgeous, especially at night. There’s a City Hall that very much resembles the New City Hall in Munich and gold rimmed guild houses. The tour also took us to the ever so famous Brussels statue of Mannekin Pis, which is a little boy peeing. The story goes that the city was under siege and the enemy had placed explosives all around the city walls and lit the fuse. A little boy found these and saved the city by urinating on the fuse to put it out. He also has a female counterpart (who was added much more recently) by the name of Jeannekin Pis. She happens to be situated across from our next destination, Delerium Café. It turns out Belgium is very much known for its beer. Granted the reason you don’t hear about this in Germany is that Germans would not consider Belgium Beer to be beer… Germany has the “Reinheitsverbot” or Purity Law. Only the four ingredients in beer are allowed to be put in beer. Belgium doesn’t and that’s what its beer is famous for. Most notable is Kriek Biere, or cherry flavored beer (which does not taste very much like beer at all and is actually quite tasty!). However, also famous are raspberry beers, strawberry beers, blueberry beers, peach beers, honey beers and even such things as coconut, chocolate, banana or mango beer. Granted those are just the fruit beers. There are also dozens of not directly flavored beers that taste very different. The book of beers offered at Delerium Café is approximately 3 inches thick and that’s not an exaggeration. Also cool, each different beer has its own glass. The Belgians claim that the beers taste better in their own glass. We quickly decided that Kwak was the coolest kind- not only because of its name, and its taste (also not overly beery!), but also because of its glass. It looks like it belongs in a chemistry lab!

But moving on from beer… Saturday morning was our native led tour of Brussels. After a breakfast of nutella bread we met the other two Belgians and headed around the city. We started at the Cinquantenaire triumphal arch, which was built by King Leopold for the 50^th year jubilee of independence. It’s free to get to the top to look out and there’s an elevator. Two points for Brussels right there. There’s also a really cool aviation museum attached/inside the gate. We were amused by the fact that most of the planes had targets in the pattern of the Belgium flag painted on the wing and body of the plane… that seems anti-purposeful. Then we headed over to the EU Parliament building. If you didn’t know, the EU has its headquarters in Brussels. The building is really, really cool. It was also really neat to see all the flags of the different countries flying and “European Parliament” written in all the different languages. Unfortunately it’s only open to the public on weekdays so we couldn’t go inside. Both of these buildings are a little outside the main city square so on our way back there we stopped for lunch at the “best Pommes Frites” in Belgium. Those, of course, are French Fries which are really Belgium Fries. Well, if I were a bigger fan of French fries I might have enjoyed them more for what they were, but it was the experience that counted. We also had a very awkward kind of Belgium sausage thing. Not really sure what it was. We found out, however, that the majority of Belgium food is extremely fried. Not what I was expecting. Also ended up trying Belgium Fanta. I have to say, it is amazing. It tastes remarkably different from both the American and the German version, proving, I guess, that it’s manufactured separately for every country.

Anyway, after our lunch break we walked past the king’s gardens and then the Royal Palace. Belgium still has a king, if you didn’t know it. We then saw the upper town square, a couple of churches (one of which was hosting a wedding in an hour) and some cool older buildings. Then we took the metro out to the Atomium, which is Brussels “Eiffel Tower”. It was built for an exposition and is basically a giant representation of iron… Yes. A bunch of metal balls connected by “bonds” which are really escalators connecting the spheres. You can go up in to the top for a great view as well as check out exhibits in the other spheres. It was a really long wait. Turns out Belgium efficiency actually fails more than the Germany version. The only way to the top is single elevator that is also bringing people down. The elevator supposedly fits 20 people. This explains why the guides were ushering in between 11 and 15 people each time even though there was plenty of room. The line, meanwhile, was circling in on itself around the inside of the building. But we finally made it to the top and were impressed by the view. You could see Mini-Europe park from the top, since it’s actually right under the Atomium. That’s a park with to-scale models of all the big European monuments- the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, leaning tour of Pisa, Coliseum, etc. The other spheres showed exhibits about the making of, etc. One was a café. Another is open for group children sleepovers. That’s kinda cool. The best part was the super long, thin escalators leading between the spheres. You’re traveling on bonds!

By the time we got down, it was getting late in the afternoon and we were hungry. We took the metro back to the city center and walked through the sites we’d seen at night in the day. The city square was just as gorgeous as it had been at night. Then we experienced another aspect of Belgium custom while trying to find dinner. We happened to walk through a “tourist strip” of restaurants, mostly serving mussels and fries (apparently Belgium specialties?). The waiters seemed desperate for guests. They approached you on the street and practically begged you to come in, telling you all their specials and that all the food further down the strip was the same and more expensive and that they would give you a free drink… unfortunately we got wheeled in. One of the waiters had got the attention of the three Belgians and then proceeded to turn on me and telling me how I would make his night by being in his restaurant and he’d try to make my night with the food and calling me princess. I figured that was reason enough not to go but the guys liked the food and were amused so we went. Luckily they had choices other than mussels and we did get a free drink which was nice since beverages are expensive in Europe. Despite the filling meal Steve and I got chocolate covered Belgium waffles for dessert because we’d been pining for them all day. That pretty much marked the end of the day. We were tired for three days of intense city seeing and the other two needed to go back to their homes. Turns out all three of them had their bachelor theses due Tuesday…

Sunday, Steve and I made a day trip to Bruges. We had been told by his parents to see either Bruges or Antwerp while we were there and the Belgians recommended the former. It was only an hour away and a 13 Euro round trip train ticket so we slept in and took an 11:00 train. I’ll be honest, I knew nothing about Bruges. Apparently it’s a pretty famous city? It’s a gorgeous one anyway, as we soon found out. Extremely walkable and extremely touristy as well… but that wasn’t bad. We followed the other tourists off the train and across the street to the tourist office where we got our city maps and then followed the same group of tourists the 15 minute walk to the city center. The first thing to note is that every other shop is a chocolate shop. These are split up by lace shops, candy shops, waffle stands, souvenir shops and beer shops (selling all the sorts of Belgium beer and/or the glasses). We stopped in just about every chocolate shop trying to find the right prices. And even though it was Sunday, 90% of the city was still open and running. Bruges had a lot of little canals running through the city (Boris referred to it as the “Little Venice” but having been to Amsterdam I would say that Bruges has nothing on Amsterdam in terms of canals. Gorgeous all the same though, with the houses and tours and churches. We stopped by the church housing Michelangelo’s Madonna with Child- one of the very few Michelangelo pieces not in Italy. We also saw the city castle as well as the Church of the Sacred Blood. They have Christ’s blood in a vial! You can even go up and touch it! We semi-followed the map through the city, making sure to see the “top ten sites” listed on the map, which basically were churches, views and historical areas. There is a monastery there and apparently they brew beer. On our way back through the city we finally decided to get our shopping out of the way and stopped by the cheapest store we’d found to buy Belgium chocolate. The truffles are simply amazing. We also stopped for more waffles… and at one point Belgium chocolate ice cream (that one was good!!!) Not the healthiest travel day…

Also notable: for those of you who don’t know, Belgium has two national languages, Flemish and French. What I didn’t know, however, is that Flemish is actually a dialect of Dutch! (Dutch being the half English/half German mixture I fell in love with in Amsterdam) Whereas Brussels is mostly French speaking, Bruge, being in the northern Flemish district, was almost primarily Dutch speaking. I was so happy to see the language again! Steve no longer had to translate everything!

Anyway, we took the train back to Brussels and met Boris at his friend’s bar. They’re actually similar to boy scouts leaders and this is the meeting place, but after the meetings the leaders hang out there. They run it themselves and sell cheap pizza so we got dinner there and got to mingle with Belgians for the evening.

Monday morning we said goodbye to our host and Steve and I set off to explore the city on our own until our flight. We went in the St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral. Of course it was Pentecost Monday so we walked into a service. Oops. Then we wandered around the city, happening upon part of the Comic Strip Route by accident. Throughout the city, walls and subways are painted with comic strip motifs. I’d forgotten I’d wanted to see that! We also got insanely lucky. We wandered into a chocolate shop giving away free samples!!! There we fell in love with the crème truffle… which they were selling for 11 Euro a box. We declined that one but later walked considerably farther away from the tourist center and found the same box for 3 Euro. So good!!! We ended our trip with a final Belgium waffle and a trip to “Quick”, which is a Belgium fast food joint. Yes! Fast food that did not originate in the US! We’d actually seen a couple in Paris, too and figured we had to try it. Pretty good. Pretty typical anyway. Given the French fries and fried meat we’d had on Saturday, the fact that Belgium creates fast food didn’t surprise me all that much. Hamburgers in hand, we got on our train to the airport and then boarded the flight with no issues. We landed in Munich at 5:40 and were home by 7. And that pretty much ends the trip. Steve flew out Tuesday morning to go home so Monday night was about unpacking and repacking. Tuesday I took him to the airport and then took a bus to Garching. Back to the norm of classes and work.

As far as the following week, Saturday was a day trip to Dachau, the concentration camp, and Sunday was cooking for the American Stammtisch, which was today. Will update you on how that goes later, but might wait to add one of this weekend’s day trips, so it might be a week or so.

Here are some pictures!

The Atomium

The guild houses on the Grand Place

Some pretty cool Brussels buildings

The EU Building

The City Hall (Hotel de Ville) of the Grand Place... not Munich's Rathaus

Kwak beer in the glass...

Steve and I trying out Belgium beer (pretty sure mine was the honey one)

Cathedral of St. Micheal... not Notre Dame

Apparently (according to our map) the most photographed spot in Bruges